95 people have overdosed on synthetic weed (also known as K2, Spice, Mr. Nice Guy and Green Giant) in the last few days at New Haven Green, a local park that’s close to Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut.
The mass overdoses began on Tuesday with two dozen people overdosing within a 3-hour period and more overdoses on Wednesday that brought the number up to 76, according to reports, followed by another 19 overdoses occurring on Thursday.
It must have been a scary sight to see, as eyewitnesses have said that people under the influence of K2 can look like zombies that just start collapsing and convulsing on the street.
While nobody has died, 6 patients were “near death” according to CBS News, and New Haven Emergency Operations Director Rick Fontana told CNN, “patients had symptoms of increased heart rates, decreased respiratory rates and a lot of vomiting. Some people were unconscious, others were semi-conscious.”
According to The Independent UK, K2 has even caused bleeding out of the eye sockets and delusional thinking.
What’s crazier is that some patients, who after been released from the hospital, would later be re-admitted seemingly having overdosed on synthetic weed again!
According to reports, 3 people have been arrested in connection with the overdoses.
Synthetic marijuana (aka K2 and Spice) is NOT cannabis
This only fuels the anti-cannabis stigma as cannabis but let’s make one thing clear- this is NOT cannabis.
K2 (and other products like it) are often labelled as “not intended for human consumption” and sold as incense or potpourri, but it is basically plant material sprayed with a myriad of chemicals that are meant to mimic the effects of cannabis that you can roll and smoke much in the same way you would cannabis.
There are also forms that you can vaporize, too, and according to CNN, K2 in its various forms “can be anywhere from 2 to 100 times more potent than THC”, saying that the “wide range is due to the fact that the drugs used change from batch to batch” which is a bid by manufacturers to stay one step ahead of the law.
You never know what’s in K2
Sometimes nothing is better than the real thing and that’s 100% true when it comes to synthetic weed, as K2 has been found to have been laced with rat poison (which caused 3 deaths in Illinois) in some cases and even possibly the deadly opioid fentanyl.
Not knowing what’s in your drugs is one of the biggest risks when it comes to the black market, and that is especially true when it comes to K2.
Featured image courtesy of WTNH.com.
Sources
CBS News: New Haven overdoses highlight K2 synthetic marijuana dangers.
CNN: More than 90 people overdosed on K2 in one New Haven park.
The Independent: New Haven overdose: What is K2 weed alternative and how dangerous is the synthetic marijuana?.